


ghost

by iimpavid, It_MightBe_Love



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Character, Professors, Russian Literature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:01:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28432083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/It_MightBe_Love/pseuds/It_MightBe_Love
Summary: Russian novels are like their tea— dark, brewed unbearably long, strong enough to kill a grown man with. Of course Yasha teaches them. They’re right up his alley.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	ghost

**Author's Note:**

> 2021 is the year that I post my entire back catalog of fanfic notes from Google Drive one fic at a time in a mad bid to find inspiration to write something new.

Russian novels are like their tea— dark, brewed unbearably long, strong enough to kill a grown man with. Of course Yasha teaches them. They’re right up his alley. 

“… a wonderful question! No, you won’t be reading Ayn Rand in this class. She’s _American_ but more importantly: She’s an insufferable egoist incapable of fully recognizing her own subjectivity and humanity with a penchant for internalized classism and sexism.” 

Dr. Yasha Amelin’s 8 a.m. Russian Literature class is suspiciously full. More so than it was on the first day of classes. The Dean is considering adding an additional section next semester. On day one he sets a task for himself, his own final exam made no easier by his popularity: memorize his students’ faces and names by the end of the semester or be forced to give them all passing grades on their final papers.

“Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya’s humorist essays spoke primarily against the Tsarist government at the turn of the century— the Nineteenth century, not the Twentieth one, don’t be a smartass. She noted her own greatest influence to be Chekhov. What do you think of her self-analysis? Does she approach the same elegiac tone and humanitarian attitude?” 

His handwriting is meticulous on the whiteboard, as if it had been lifted straight from a vintage typewriter, switching from Cyrillic to the Arabic alphabet then back again seemingly without much intention, effort, or notice.

The good-humored orthodox jewish man in oversized, shapeless cardigans and sweatpants (or cardigans and basketball shorts or cardigans and, on the most-special occasions, poorly-tailored slacks) mostly draws such a crowd because, beneath his terrible wardrobe, it’s obvious that he’s _completely stacked._ There’s at least one student in the back row of class actively writing poetry about his unfairly blue eyes. 

It doesn’t hurt that he’s painfully competent in his field of choice either.

“… Vapnyar uses the protagonist of the novel as self-portrait as a translingual and transcultural storyteller, a distinct act of parody in which they spend almost the entirety of the narrative explaining their Soviet lives to Americans. Wanner, in his analysis, clearly considers this self-exoticizing…”

* * *

A month into his first semester he sees a new face appearing regularly in the front row, center table. Three days a week she’s there two minutes before class starts like clockwork and out the door as soon as he turns his back to erase the board. She takes no notes, turns in no assignments, and constantly corrects his tendency to use Russian colloquialisms from the Soviet Era. She isn’t on any of his rosters.

He has to stop her in the exit rush one morning with a hand on her elbow. “Excuse me, do you have a moment? I don’t believe I ever caught your name and I’d hate to fail my own final because of that.” 

April Miller ends up cancelling her 8AM Linguistic Conventions seminar due to a sudden lack of attendance. Not that her students are ditching her class, but the sudden high drop count. The seminar should house twenty-seven students. By the first week of school, there are four still actively enrolled in the class. By the end of the week, there’s only one and April ends up cancelling the class for the semester and sending a cranky email to the class registrar about finding a time in the Spring for it.

Myrtle tells her about the new Russian Lit prof, who has an 8AM class on the same days as April’s seminar, and by the end of the month, she’s finally worked her way through righteous indignation (her students know she isn’t a morning person, the cancelled class has entirely disrupted her schedule), and come ‘round into curiosity.  
  
She shows up, flinty-eyed and gagging for information and settles in the front row beside one of her dissertation candidates. Chelsea Forsythe, a statuesque brunette on an athletic scholarship. April’s seen the girl play lacrosse. If she manages to get her degree, April’d be delighted to write as many glowing references as she’s able.

Chelsea spends a long, heart-stopping moment staring before choking out, “Uh. Dr. Miller…?”  
  
April smiles benignly and crosses her legs daintily. One red soled shoe displayed prominently, “Chelsea.”   
  
There’s another awkward pause as the students around her take notice and an obvious pall is cast over half the classroom. Dr. Miller has finally turned up, and a fair number of students are torn between outright pants shitting terror, and wonderment.   
  
Chelsea lifts a hand to flap vaguely at the turned back of Professor Amelin, April let’s her gaze follow it and then she snorts out a laugh.   
  
“Ah. I see.”   
  
Chelsea chokes. Probably on air, and turns a shade of red that looks physically painful and determines to spend the rest of the semester on her absolute best behavior.   
  
April discovers a joyous new pastime. Which is terrorizing her students without having to actually do more than turn up. (Myrtle and Hank find this abominably hilarious, Hank brings her tea in the morning and scuttles off to have a chuckle).   
  
April’d find the mornings _more_ satisfying, if Professor Amelin spoke Russian more organically. She corrects him, frequently without realizing she’s doing it. (Once a teacher, always a teacher). Knows she’s being borderline disruptive, except _really_ . Where did he learn to speak? From a Cold War era pamphlet? Lord Almighty.   
  
She does her best to skedaddle before he can stop her after class most days, it isn’t against the rules to sit in on another professor’s class. But it certainly skirts the edge of politic.   
  
And then he goes and asks for her name and she can’t help the laughter, “Oh. You must’ve _just_ finished your degree, didn’t you?” She can’t help the wave of weirdly maternal fondness. He’s so _young_ , and this close up it’s terribly obvious. She must have at least a decade on him.   
  
“Dr. April Miller, I’m head of Linguistics.”

“Is it obvious? Sorry if I offended, Dr. Miller, as you so astutely observed I’m very new to all of this.” Yasha grins, chagrined and comfortable enough to laugh at himself.

She nodded, “Just a little, don’t worry about it too much though, ain’t nobody here gonna pay attention too terrible much to it.” Louisianan drawl was all amusement. He looked good laughing. Lord she was not allowed to flirt with the baby professors.

“I _have_ heard of you although a reputation like that isn’t usually attached to someone so young. I didn’t mean to poach your students. Why they wanna read a bunch of dead Russians rather than acquire a better grasp of human communication is beyond me, personally. Hell, I don’t know why _I_ want to be teaching them.” It’s a little on the nose, that. An inside joke he can have with himself.   
  
She laughed, abrupt and absolutely delighted, “Oh I ain’t _that_ young. But it’s real sweet of y’to say. And I imagine it’s on account of…” she paused. She absolutely could not say it was because he had the kind of thighs and shoulders a girl would wanna wrap herself around. Naked. She could _feel_ her cheeks heating, “You bein’ new. We don’t get many profs here wantin’ t’teach Lit, quite so young, especially not ones inclined t’teaching authors what ain’t old dead white men.”

Her blush is one of the prettiest things he’s had the pleasure of laying eyes on since he was brought out of cryo. He laughs anyway because he’s seen one of his students conspicuously wear a “thick thighs save lives” shirt to his class three times this semester. 

He’s undercover, not stupid. 

“I’m sure that’s exactly it. Although you’d think they’d be a bit more discerning; Russian Lit, for all it’s the apple of my eye, isn’t exactly what I’d call diverse or a lighthearted.” 

* * *

The following Monday, Yasha turns up at Dr. Miller’s office before his first class, a bag of pastries in hand. 

Dr. Miller’s assistant, whose nameplate helpfully lists him as _Hank Jh’on,_ stops him. Literally stands up and holds an arm out between Yasha and the door to Dr. Miller’s office. Hank asks, without so much as a _hi how ya doin_ , “Is it kosher?” 

Yasha stares at him until the silence gets palpably uncomfortable. Then he slowly points at the yarmulke he’s wearing. “I don’t know, what do you think?” 

“Hey, man, you’d be surprised how many guys’ll wear a yarmulke in here to try to bring her food.” 

“I don’t know if that’s endearing or creepy but judging by this,” he gestures between Hank’s arm, still barring his path, and himself, “I’m gonna go with creepy. Yes, they’re kosher. From Moishe’s on Grand.” 

Hank squints, nods, and shouts, “Hey Doc. You got some jailbait out here tryna win your eternal love!” He adds something in Korean which results in April yanking the door open. 

It’s clear by her state of disshabile-- hair unbound and falling to the small of her back, top three buttons of her blouse undone, (it’s obvious she isn’t wearing anything beneath it, the fabric is filmy and silk and there is a reason she wears a blazer over the peach material), and the laughably thick frames perched on her nose-- that she’s not actually _left_ for home yet.   
  
“I’ve _told_ you Hank, they ain’t jailbait if they’re old enough t’buy porn!--” She catches sight of Yasha Amelin. And promptly shuts her office door in his face.   
  
Hank, the filthy traitor, doubles over his desk wheezing with laughter.

“Old enough to vote, too! And older than I look— I’m flattered, though, doll, thanks.” He might wink at Hank before going to rap lightly on April’s office door. If he does there’s no security camera footage to prove it. “Dr. Miller! I’m sorry to interrupt but I thought you might want breakfast.” 

April is going to murder Hank. Eventually. Somehow.   
She gets her blouse buttoned and her hair twisted up before yanking the door open once more to frown, “Professor Amelin,” she tossed a scowl in Hank’s direction and pulled the door open further, “Please. Come in. I never say no t’-- izzat from _Moishes_?”

Letting Yasha into her office would change everything about her life … and nothing at all.

* * *

The last morning begins in a rain shower, soft and shimmering against the grey not-light of damp sunrise. New York thrummed forty stories below the apartment. Dozens of shelves laden with books throughout the apartment absorbed the din of midtown Manhattan— for baseline ears, anyway. Outside the bedroom the hardwood floors were cool, bordering on too cold to walk across softly. Furniture cast deep shadows and the greyscale refractions of rainwater played hide and seek between them.

The Winter Soldier stood over April for the better part of twenty minutes. His feet were bare. He watched her sleep.

April dreamt soundly beneath her grandmother’s quilt, Horatio curled up on the warm crest of her hip. Her face was hidden by her hair. Spilled gold across her pillow that shifted a little with each deep exhale. If he were to lean in closer or climb back into bed he would smell the hypoallergenic detergent of her sheets, the plum-blossom-and-honey sweet scent of her skin, Horatio’s bizarre and comforting aura of rotted leaves. They could get up in a few hours, reluctant, to spend the day drinking thick Russian tea and reading. Playing hookey from their respective positions at the local university, pretending there weren’t papers to grade and department meetings to prepare for.

Yasha Amelin led an idyllic life after all, for an adjunct professor of Russian Language and Literature; he adored his girlfriend, had an abiding fondness for rainy days spent indoors, lived to raid library archives for their treasures.

This was the sort of day Yasha looked forward to. He might spend it scrawling in half-comprehensible, coded hebrew in his growing collection of notebooks about any number of other lives he’s lived, taken, destroyed.

The Winter Soldier couldn’t have such distractions. April Miller was HYDRA’s most-sought-after potential-recruit. Yasha Amelin didn’t exist. And because of this James Barnes was leaving the city without further ado. 

In Queens he stopped in a diner bathroom to shave off Yasha Amelin’s beard and cut his hair military-short. He stole clothes from a junkie in the subway bathroom, sold the dime bag the kid’d had on him for bus fare to Toronto.

The passport in his back pocket was a passable enough forgery to get him out of the United States and money-- he could beg, borrow, and steal if the need arose. By the time he crossed the border he was without doubt the most-hunted man in the hemisphere, where HYDRA and its façade SHIELD were concerned, but he knew how best to go to ground. He would become the definition of inconspicuous.

What would come after would be simple: those who had held him, who would hold April if given half the chance, would need to die. Then he might find a way to reassemble something like a life.


End file.
